To reduce the emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) to the atmosphere different measures can be applied, for example a reduced energy use and a shift from fossil fuels to renewable fuels such as biomass. An energy efficient way of utilising biomass could be for production of transport fuel, electric power and heat in a so-called e...

To reduce the emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) to the atmosphere different measures can be applied, for example a reduced energy use and a shift from fossil fuels to renewable fuels such as biomass. An energy efficient way of utilising biomass could be for production of transport fuel, electric power and heat in a so-called energy combine. In this report a vision of how a large-scale biomass-based energy combine could be part of a future sustainable energy system in Göteborg has been developed. In order to determine the size of a energy combine, scenarios of the future demand for transport fuel, electricity and heat in the residential and service sector and the transport sector have been made. The method applied is the so-called backcasting approach, which is a method to analyse future options from a sustainability perspective. The sustainability criteria applied are that the energy system should not give rise to net emissions of CO2, that it is based on renewable energy sources and that it is characterised by efficiency, both on the supply and user side. A population increase of 35 % compared with today is also assumed. The image Minimize

The everyday work at a staffing agency and how its leaders deal with the problems that appears: A case study at Maxkompetens. The purpose of this paper is to increase the understanding of how leaders at a staffing company deal with the everyday problems that arise from a geographically dispersed workforce. The staffing industry has grown by 30-4...

The everyday work at a staffing agency and how its leaders deal with the problems that appears: A case study at Maxkompetens. The purpose of this paper is to increase the understanding of how leaders at a staffing company deal with the everyday problems that arise from a geographically dispersed workforce. The staffing industry has grown by 30-40 percent annually and has over the past 15 years been the fastest growing industry in Sweden. This shows that the interest and demand for the staffing industry and its activities are now rising at an increasingly faster pace. This is an industry that is operating under specific conditions and with a geographically dispersed workforce. This will make the leaders of a staffing company to an important link between the staffing leaders and the staffing personnel. The relationship between the staffing company's leaders and its personnel is important, but not completely trouble free. Difficulties arise in that the employees may be located in different places and at various client companies with the result that the leaders of the staffing company cannot have a daily personal contact with their geographically dispersed personnel. We have used a qualitative approach on our paper and our empirical methodology has been a case study with ethnography and interviews. We have implemented both participating and non-participant observations at our case company, which were supplemented with semi-structured interviews. Our study and its results will contribute to research in the sense that it, in a new way, will increase the understanding of how problems are being handled by staffing leaders in their everyday work. The problems that arise and how they are handled will result in that staffing companies gets more insight into how they are affected by the geographical distance to their consultants and how they can deal with this problem. Minimize

The 2007 European larch ( Larix decidua Mill.) growing season was monitored along two elevational transects in the Lötschental valley in the Swiss Alps. Phenological observations and weekly microcore sampling of 28 larch trees were conducted between April and October 2007 at seven study sites regularly spaced from 1350 to 2150 m a.s.l. on nort...

The 2007 European larch ( Larix decidua Mill.) growing season was monitored along two elevational transects in the Lötschental valley in the Swiss Alps. Phenological observations and weekly microcore sampling of 28 larch trees were conducted between April and October 2007 at seven study sites regularly spaced from 1350 to 2150 m a.s.l. on northwest- and southeast-facing slopes. The developmental stages of nearly 75,000 individual cells assessed on 1200 thin sections were used to investigate the links between the trees’ thermal regimes and growth phases including the beginning and ending of cell enlargement, wall thickening and maturation of the stem wood. Needles appeared ~3–4 weeks earlier than stem growth. The duration of ring formation lasted from mid-May to the end of October, with the length of the growing season decreasing along elevation from 137 to 101 days. The onset of the different growing seasons changed by 3–4 days per 100 m elevation; the ending of the growing season, however, appeared minimally related to altitude. If associated with the monitored altitudinal lapse rate of −0.5 °C per 100 m, these results translate into a lengthening of the growing season by ~7 days per degree Celsius. This study provides new data on the timing and duration of basic growth processes and contributes to quantification of the impacts of global warming on tree growth and productivity. Minimize

The 2007 European larch ( Larix decidua Mill.) growing season was monitored along two elevational transects in the Lötschental valley in the Swiss Alps. Phenological observations and weekly microcore sampling of 28 larch trees were conducted between April and October 2007 at seven study sites regularly spaced from 1350 to 2150 m a.s.l. on nort...

The 2007 European larch ( Larix decidua Mill.) growing season was monitored along two elevational transects in the Lötschental valley in the Swiss Alps. Phenological observations and weekly microcore sampling of 28 larch trees were conducted between April and October 2007 at seven study sites regularly spaced from 1350 to 2150 m a.s.l. on northwest- and southeast-facing slopes. The developmental stages of nearly 75,000 individual cells assessed on 1200 thin sections were used to investigate the links between the trees’ thermal regimes and growth phases including the beginning and ending of cell enlargement, wall thickening and maturation of the stem wood. Needles appeared ~3–4 weeks earlier than stem growth. The duration of ring formation lasted from mid-May to the end of October, with the length of the growing season decreasing along elevation from 137 to 101 days. The onset of the different growing seasons changed by 3–4 days per 100 m elevation; the ending of the growing season, however, appeared minimally related to altitude. If associated with the monitored altitudinal lapse rate of −0.5 °C per 100 m, these results translate into a lengthening of the growing season by ~7 days per degree Celsius. This study provides new data on the timing and duration of basic growth processes and contributes to quantification of the impacts of global warming on tree growth and productivity. Minimize

The first results from the Tenth Cambridge (10C) Survey of Radio Sources, carried out using the AMI Large Array (LA) at an observing frequency of 15.7 GHz, are presented. The survey fields cover an area of approximately 27 sq. degrees to a flux-density completeness of 1 mJy. Results for some deeper areas, covering approximately 12 sq. degrees, w...

The first results from the Tenth Cambridge (10C) Survey of Radio Sources, carried out using the AMI Large Array (LA) at an observing frequency of 15.7 GHz, are presented. The survey fields cover an area of approximately 27 sq. degrees to a flux-density completeness of 1 mJy. Results for some deeper areas, covering approximately 12 sq. degrees, wholly contained within the total areas and complete to 0.5 mJy, are also presented. The completeness for both areas is estimated to be at least 93 per cent. The source catalogue contains 1897 entries and is available at www.mrao.cam.ac.uk/surveys/10C. It has been combined with that of the 9C Survey to calculate the 15.7-GHz source counts. A broken power law is found to provide a good parameterisation of the differential count between 0.5 mJy and 1 Jy. The measured count has been compared to that predicted by de Zotti et al. (2005). The model displays good agreement with the data at the highest flux densities but under-predicts the integrated count between 0.5 mJy and 1 Jy by about 30 per cent. Entries from the source catalogue have been matched to those contained in the catalogues of NVSS and FIRST (both of which have observing frequencies of 1.4 GHz). This matching provides evidence for a shift in the typical 1.4-to-15.7-GHz spectral index of the 15.7-GHz-selected source population with decreasing flux density towards sub-mJy levels - the spectra tend to become less steep. Automated methods for detecting extended sources have been applied to the data; approximately 5 per cent of the sources are found to be extended relative to the LA synthesised beam of approximately 30 arcsec. Investigations using higher-resolution data showed that most of the genuinely extended sources at 16 GHz are classical doubles, although some nearby galaxies and twin-jet sources were also identified. ; Comment: 15 pages, 12 figures, landscape page (Table 1) is included on final page, submitted to MNRAS. Modified to compare to latest version of the de Zotti model. Added further detail about checks to flux-density scale Minimize

We present results from follow-up observations of a sample of 80 radio sources, originally detected as part of the 15.2-GHz Ninth Cambridge (9C) survey. The observations were carried out, close to simultaneously, at two frequencies: 15.7 GHz, using the Arcminute Microkelvin Imager (AMI) Large Array, and 93.2 GHz, using the Combined Array for Res...

We present results from follow-up observations of a sample of 80 radio sources, originally detected as part of the 15.2-GHz Ninth Cambridge (9C) survey. The observations were carried out, close to simultaneously, at two frequencies: 15.7 GHz, using the Arcminute Microkelvin Imager (AMI) Large Array, and 93.2 GHz, using the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy (CARMA). There is currently little direct information on the 90-GHz-band source count for S ≲ 1 Jy. However, we have used the measured 15.7-to-93.2-GHz spectral-index distribution and 9C source count to predict the differential source count at 93.2 GHz as 26 ± 4( S /Jy)−2.15 Jy−1 sr−1; our projection is estimated to be most accurate for 10 ≲ S ≲ 100 mJy. Our estimated differential count is more than twice the 90-GHz prediction made by Waldram et al.; we believe that this discrepancy is because the measured 43-GHz flux densities used in making their prediction were too low. Similarly, our prediction is significantly higher than that of Sadler et al. at 95 GHz. Since our spectral-index distribution is similar to the 20-to-95-GHz distribution measured by Sadler et al. and used in making their prediction, we believe that the difference is almost entirely attributable to the dissimilarity in the lower frequency counts used in making the estimates. Minimize

We present results from follow-up observations of a sample of 80 radio sources, originally detected as part of the 15.2-GHz Ninth Cambridge (9C) survey. The observations were carried out, close to simultaneously, at two frequencies: 15.7 GHz, using the Arcminute Microkelvin Imager (AMI) Large Array, and 93.2 GHz, using the Combined Array for Res...

We present results from follow-up observations of a sample of 80 radio sources, originally detected as part of the 15.2-GHz Ninth Cambridge (9C) survey. The observations were carried out, close to simultaneously, at two frequencies: 15.7 GHz, using the Arcminute Microkelvin Imager (AMI) Large Array, and 93.2 GHz, using the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy (CARMA). There is currently little direct information on the 90-GHz-band source count for S ≲ 1 Jy. However, we have used the measured 15.7-to-93.2-GHz spectral-index distribution and 9C source count to predict the differential source count at 93.2 GHz as 26 ± 4( S /Jy)−2.15 Jy−1 sr−1; our projection is estimated to be most accurate for 10 ≲ S ≲ 100 mJy. Our estimated differential count is more than twice the 90-GHz prediction made by Waldram et al.; we believe that this discrepancy is because the measured 43-GHz flux densities used in making their prediction were too low. Similarly, our prediction is significantly higher than that of Sadler et al. at 95 GHz. Since our spectral-index distribution is similar to the 20-to-95-GHz distribution measured by Sadler et al. and used in making their prediction, we believe that the difference is almost entirely attributable to the dissimilarity in the lower frequency counts used in making the estimates. Minimize

BACKGROUND: Glutathione S-transferase (GST) enzymes are involved in detoxifying chemotherapy agents and clearing reactive oxygen species formed by radiation. In this study, we explored the relationship between the host GSTP1 -105 polymorphism (rs1695), tumor GSTpi protein expression, and clinical outcomes in pediatric medulloblastoma. We hypoth...

BACKGROUND: Glutathione S-transferase (GST) enzymes are involved in detoxifying chemotherapy agents and clearing reactive oxygen species formed by radiation. In this study, we explored the relationship between the host GSTP1 -105 polymorphism (rs1695), tumor GSTpi protein expression, and clinical outcomes in pediatric medulloblastoma. We hypothesized that the GSTP1 -105 G-allele and increased tumor GSTpi expression would be associated with lower progression-free survival and fewer adverse events. METHODS: The study included 106 medulloblastoma/primitive neuroectodermal tumor (PNET) patients seen at Texas Children's Cancer Center. Genotyping was performed using an Illumina HumanOmni1-Quad BeadChip and tumor GSTpi expression was assessed using immunohistochemistry. We used the Kaplan-Meier method for survival analyses and multivariable logistic regression for toxicity comparisons. RESULTS: Patients with a GSTP1 -105 AG/GG genotype or who had received a higher dose of craniospinal radiation (median 36 Gy) had a greater risk of requiring hearing aids than their respective counterparts (OR 4.0, 95%CI 1.2 - 13.6, and OR 3.1, 95%CI 1.1 - 8.8, respectively). Additionally, there was a statistically significant interaction between the two variables. Compared with the lowest risk group ( GSTP1 -105 AA-lower dose radiation) patients with a GSTP1 -105 AG/GG genotype who received a higher dose radiation were 8.4 times more likely to require hearing aids (95%CI 1.4 - 49.9, p-trend = 0.005). When adjusted for age, gender, and amifostine use, the association remained. CONCLUSIONS: The GSTP1 -105 G-allele is associated with permanent ototoxicity in pediatric medulloblastoma/PNET and strongly interacts with radiation dose. A possible mechanism for this finding is that the GSTP1-105 G-allele leads to reduced GSTpi free radical detoxification in the setting of multimodality therapy including cisplatin and radiation. Patients with this allele should be considered for clinical trials employing radiation dose modifications and more targeted cytoprotectant strategies than are currently being used with amifostine. Minimize